“For more than a decade, Microsoft has failed in its tablet ambitions, with the various Pen and Tablet editions of Windows XP, Vista, and 7 falling flat, and the heavy tablets that used them saw, at best, minuscule sales to a handful of hospitals and government agencies that had no other options,” Galen Gruman writes for InfoWorld. “No one knows the number actually sold, but it has to be less than 2 million over those dozen years. By contrast, Apple has sold about 70 million iPads in just over two years of that tablet’s existence.”
“Microsoft is of course hoping to change that record with the release of Windows 8 for Intel-based tablets and Windows RT for ARM-based tablets this fall. But perhaps to hedge its bets, Microsoft is also trying to isolate the iPad by discouraging access to a key Microsoft technology — its Office suite — through iPad-targeted hikes in desktop virtualization fees,” Gruman writes. “Microsoft’s strategy is clear: Do not encourage iPad purchases by making Office or SharePoint available.”
Gruman writes, “Microsoft has decided it doesn’t want to be an office productivity company first and foremost. Instead, it wants to keep the Windows hegemony it has long enjoyed by throwing up roadblocks to slow iPad adoption. That’s understandable, but not realistic. At best, Windows will be a major OS on PCs and mobile devices, competing with a merged OS X and iOS, and perhaps with Android. Still, owning 30 to 50 percent of the overall computing OS market is no small thing, if only Microsoft could see that.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Shhh. We like their strategy. We like it a lot.
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